Tag: Blockchain

Peer lending and crowdfunding have already greatly changed different industries. With the cryptosphere, there are now new ways of funding projects and selling products. It places all necessary tools directly in the hands of the project manager.

Without centralized databases and third party governance structures, all crucial decisions can be made by an artist himself, his manager, an artist’s team, or even via crowdsourcing in collaboration with fans.

The art market’s main challenges are attributed to its opaque and unregulated nature. However, by using blockchain technology to publicly record ownership and verification of authenticity of each piece of art, all of the key issues that the art market faces could effectively be alleviated.

If a public ledger for all pieces of art would be created, each artwork could be authenticated by various experts and then verified to be original. This could then be recorded on a blockchain-based ledger, thereby drastically reducing the risk of forgeries entering the market.

The Open Music Initiative (OMI) this week unveiled a new partnership with Intel to make the chip giant’s Sawtooth Lake blockchain technology as a reference platform for the open-source rights data architecture.

Under the arrangement, Sawtooth is expected to become a foundational platform for reference implementations of OMI’s protocols and APIs.

While there are several Ethereum projects currently being created, The Pitts Family Circus is the first attempt at an Ethereum financed movie, which eventually will share the profit of the films production with investing Ethereum holders via Smart Contracts on the Ethereum Blockchain.

With only 666 limited shares available, the shares are 10 ETH each, but there is also the possibility to buy fractional parts of a full share. Token holders can invest in the crowd-sale via an Ethereum smart contract and they will receive a Ethereum based ROI for the next 20 years.

Ujo Music was the startup that worked with musician Imogen Heap in 2015 to release her track “Tiny Human” on the Ehtereum blockchain. Now the company is preparing for a full commercial launch of its platform for other artists and labels to use. “Soon, Ujo Music will be open to the public. We’re targeting early 2017,” explained the company in an email sent out to its mailing list yesterday.

“We are building a service that allows you to manage your artistic identity, your music and licensing on your own terms. We are starting small, with music, onboarding eager, forward-looking artists to empower sustainable creativity,” explained the company.

South African startup Custos Media Technologies, a company that uses the bitcoin blockchain to combat media piracy has reached an agreement with the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) that will see funding of 5.9 million Rand (approx. $400,000) gained by the startup over the next two years.

The technology, seen as a unique way to combat media piracy, works by embedding a bitcoin bounty within a piece of a media. The watermark can then be tracked on the blockchain with the idea of recognizing and identifying infringements when the media leaves the original recipient or buyer of the media.

IBM is reorganizing its internal blockchain team into a business unit that encompasses its artificial intelligence and cloud computing efforts.

Called ‘Industry Platforms’, the division will be led by Bridget van Kralingen, IBM’s former senior vice president of Global Business Services. Further, as part of the launch, IBM’s entire blockchain leadership will make the transition to the unit, first announced last September.